“Unrequited love isn’t something that’s alien to any of us, is it?” Alas, no – but the scenario that the actor Paapa Essiedu is talking about in his new drama Falling is slightly more complicated than the usual. Perceptively written with signature flickers of humour by the unstoppable Jack Thorne, the Channel 4 series introduces us to Anna, a nun played by Keeley Hawes, and Essiedu’s David, a Catholic priest with a troubled past who, underneath his clerical clothing, is very human – he’s flawed, funny, smokes round the back of the vestry and unwinds by clowning about with his deaf older sister. Over several months, a spark between Anna and David prompts both to question their vows to different extents at incompatible times, causing their lives to edge repeatedly towards and away from each other’s.
Paapa Essiedu in FallingCourtesy of Channel 4
“It’s almost a love triangle: the longing between the two of them and their respective calling to God,” says Essiedu, who grew up in east London in a church-going household and related to aspects of his character’s quest to find solidarity in religion. “I still retain a sense of there being something deeply spiritual, if not in as institutionalised a form as Christianity. I often envy the sureness that comes with faith. I think, ‘Wow, there must be such calm in the idea that everything can be attributed to the divine or a greater purpose.’ David finds himself in the area between certainty and doubt, and it’s in that space that drama exists.”
Both protagonists’ decisions are variously supported and thwarted by members of their families and their ecclesiastical communities, but, as Essiedu puts it, “Their magnetic connection is so great that eventually something’s gotta give somewhere… And actually, so many of life’s big moments are when you take a risk.”
Essiedu and Keeley Hawes in FallingCourtesy of Channel 4
Making continually unpredictable and bold choices is a modus operandi that has paid off in Essiedu’s own career. He started out at the RSC and has since given several formidable performances on stage in particularly challenging productions. In Lucy Prebble’s dizzying, dystopian The Effect at the National Theatre in 2023, he gave a performance laced with charisma, while in Death of England: Delroy a year later, he produced, alone on stage, an astonishing tapestry of scalding rage, mischievous comedy and heartbreak. Striking turns on television have included his brilliant breakout in I May Destroy You, and one on the horizon may prove his most bewitching yet. Essiedu is about to step into Professor Snape’s shoes in the forthcoming Harry Potter small-screen adaptation, in which he will interpret the professor in a way that feels ‘truthful and exciting’ to him, as a mega-fan of the books growing up.
Essiedu in the forthcoming Harry Potter adaptationLara Cornell/HBO
“I feel so lucky to get to play incredibly rich, complex, often quite weird characters that have a lot of meat on the bone irrespective of how much they do or don’t speak,” he says, mulling over being in an ensemble cast versus playing a lead. “I’m always after people who have components to them that are… surprising.”
‘Falling’ is available to watch on Channel 4 now.